I attended the 2016 SPSS Conference and met with several widely renowned "big wigs" in our field that not only provided invaluable feedback on my studies but also brainstormed ideas for next steps in future studies. Since that time and thanks to this feedback, I have made signifcantly more progress on the two projects that I presented on had I not attended SPSS. One of these projects is now published, while the other is in its final stages of the writing process and should be submitted for publication soon. Given that publications are the key to getting a job in academia after graduate school, I am excited by the progress I have made on this front in the last year. All of this would not have been possible without the generous gift of the Alumni Advisory Board, and I would like to extend a sincere thank you for providing graduate students in the University of Illinois Psychology Department the opportunity to receive these funds. Opportunities such as these, while generally few and far between, help us greatly and play a role in helping us navigate the financial difficulties of progressing through graduate school.

Daniel is part of the Developmental Program